The Craft Design workshop 18th and 19th November

Nitika Don Bosco, Kolkata

A two-day workshop on Crafts Design was organised at Nitika Don Bosco on the 18th and 19th of November 2008. The context of the workshop was that Design is the critical component that creates the bridge between craft skill and markets and keeps the traditional craftsperson in employment! As it is a two-day event it allows for much interaction and creative exercises. From the producer groups and Sasha persons directly engaged in product development participated, while Swagata facilitated and the Sasha EDF team organised, managed and documented the workshop.

The Design workshop was a perfect blend fun, frolic and education. Helen Lockie from Britain, Naga Nandini Dasgupta from Bangalore, Simona Stoppa from Italy came all the way to take the design workshop and Swagata Ghosh of Sasha held the workshop together, being the common link between the producer groups and the three designers. The three designers took up their tasks in their own unique style. All three of drew heavily from very personal experiences and pulled out all those anecdotes, the struggles, frustrations joys, highs and lows of working as craft designers.

All the three designers have a long association with Sasha and the producers groups. Helen has been associated with Sasha in a number of product development projects and has developed a rapport with the artisans she has worked with. While Simona had been involved in product development at Sasha for years, especially with Kantha groups and Dhokra, she was also instrumental in organising an exhibition of exquisite Kantha work from Sasha in Bolzano, Italy.  Nandini’s association with Sasha is more intensive as she works with product development inputs as well as on Sasha’s external communication.
The first day began with an ice-breaking session to help participants get to know each other although very few amongst the participants were strangers to each other. The entire team was divided in to groups and each participant was to draw a picture of the person sitting to her/his left hand side and then also note three things about them too. The drawings drew quite a laugh as everyone shared their experiences.
Swagata gave a brief overview of the day’s sessions before Helen began the first  presentation of the day covering topics - why do we need to develop new products; inspiration for designing from colour and nature, everyday things, culture and art, recycling and innovating many designs out of one image, keeping in mind the Indian flavour.
Basically the aim of the illustrative and hands-on workshop was to explain how to research and apply new design ideas for developing new product range. She says that for designers, ideas lead to innovation. Hence the source of ideas plays key role. Ideas can originate from the simplest of things, from the colours and designs we find in nature.
In fact she states that foreign designers themselves find inspirations from India. India has a lot of potential and the craft market is worth mentioning. But the village-based producer groups mostly remains ignorant of the outside world and the contemporary favoured designs. In fact the majority who turned up for the workshop never knew the importance of Internet in their work. So Helen wanted to help them with its usage and demonstrated how they could use it for their benefit or even as inspiration .She firmly believes it could give so much inspiration to a craft producer whom beforehand had no chance what so ever to access this type of information cheaply and easily. Pronoti Biswas, a women group’s leader said-“What I liked most about Helen’s presentations in the design workshop were the slides. They were so simple. We didn’t face any problem in understanding them. The ambience was inspiring too
 Nandini’s presentation, was be a more personal thing, about her journey as a designer and what she got from working with craft and sasha in particular - things that influenced her. Nandini came up with a brilliant activity, an exercise for the producer groups to express their ideas and creativity. She proposed that each team was to prepare a dish giving details of the ingredients used, recipes, geographical and cultural background of the ingredients and recipes. The response was overwhelming and after that she told the participants to hypothetically invite Kareena Kapoor, the Hindi film actress for dinner and present the same dish. The different groups came up with varied thoughts that were highly appreciated by the experts.
At the end of day one, Srikanta from Sasha’s product development team had to say-“We were lucky to get such an opportunity to participate in such a workshop. I am very much thankful to Sasha and Swagata di for giving me the chance to perform in this workshop. Though the designers came from abroad, it wasn’t a difficult task to interact with them. In fact I was enriched with knowledge from the workshop. I took part in all the group activities that were conducted and even made paper made products .So far, I have attended many workshops, by far, this was the best.”

Simona mostly spoke about her personal experience highlighting on an ideal relationship and communication between designers and artisans for smooth functioning of work. She tried to demystify the whole thing - inspirations from outside (the Internet, what a client says, music, art etc) and inspirations from within  (how we as individuals 'look at' and process these).
Shankar Das of Sayani Hastashilpa, Bolpur,-“The workshop touched my heart. And the fact that it was organised for our benefit is really praiseworthy. It is true that the artisan community residing in the interior parts of the country is ignorant of the changing trends of the world. This workshop helped us to get an idea of the present demand of the market. But I wished the duration of the design workshop would have been longer”

On day two, Nandini, arranged for another kind of exercise and this time it was for another purpose; to see their expertise and resourcefulness with the limited resource supplied to them. And the products these crafts men made were beyond expectation. The entire session was cheerful, lively and eventful. As time flew,

While each designer doing her thing, Swagata held it all together as she had a deep understanding of the processes and dynamics on the ground. According to Swagata-“What is important that it remained interactive and 'alive' and it was bound to be, given each one’s experience and understanding. “
Talking to some of those who were present, seemed that they were taking home some good memories, some knowledge and mostly importantly with an open heart. Theresa, one of the participants said-“Coming all the way from Germany, and working in Sasha, even for a short duration as an intern, taught me a lot about Indian art and the social and economic conditions of the artisan community. Sasha is doing its best to uplift the artisans. I attended all the workshops and seminars that were held as a part of 30 years celebrations. Amongst all, the design workshop was the best, according to me. It was fun and the talent and enthusiasm of the artisans disarmed me.
That’s where the purpose of such workshops meets fulfilment.
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